The Local News Research Project, based at the Ryerson University School of Journalism, explores the factors that influence local news reporting, and examines how the content, the geographic patterns of news coverage, and the amount of local news shape what happens in the Greater Toronto Area. The project’s growing database allows researchers to create maps that illustrate the spatial reach of local reporting by mainstream and ethnic news organizations. The maps, combined with other data, are used to investigate the role and impact of local news. Data for the Toronto Star, four ethnic newspapers and one online local news site are currently available. For more information, contact April(dot)lindgren(at)ryerson(dot)ca

Explore the geography of local news reporting and the subject matter of that coverage using the interactive maps on this website. Visitors to the site can examine how often their neighbourhood or ward appears in the news and look at a bar graph that breaks down stories by topics such as police/crime, transit and education. More generally, you can examine how the geographic patterns of news coverage vary by topic: The map showing the places mentioned in local arts and entertainment stories and photos, for instance, looks different from the map of crime coverage. See the Interactive News Maps page or click on the map to explore how the Toronto Star and the online news site OpenFile.ca covered local news in Toronto.

By SAHAR FATIMA The misrepresentation and underrepresentation of racial and ethnic groups isn’t a problem exclusive to mainstream news organizations, concludes a new study that examined the content of ethnic media in the Greater Toronto Area.